


Footfalls Echo Into the Rose Garden

by Zoe Rayne (MontanaHarper)



Series: Footfalls [3]
Category: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: Early Work, M/M, POV First Person, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-04-10
Updated: 1998-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-11 21:04:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/117101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MontanaHarper/pseuds/Zoe%20Rayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xena's thoughts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Footfalls Echo Into the Rose Garden

**Author's Note:**

> **AO3 A/N:** This is an example of my very early fanfic. For historical purposes I'm leaving it as it was originally posted, including the summary. Even if a lot of it makes me cringe now.

> Footfalls echo in the memory  
> Down the passage which we did not take  
> Towards the door we never opened  
> Into the rose-garden.  
> —T.S. Eliot

Sometimes I wonder if I should have said something, to oneof them or to Gabrielle.

I was the only one who knew, I think, that Ares desired Joxer and that Joxer idolized Ares so much that it was only a breath away from being love.

I could see the desire burning in Ares' eyes like a smoldering coal whenever he thought no one was watching. And I'm certain that several of Joxer's close calls were made a little less close by divine interference. Not that Ares would do anything big, anything that would draw attention to himself or his feelings, but there were any number of little things, little ways in which he helped. And Joxer was never the wiser.

Of course, Joxer was blinded by his own emotions. As much as he idolized me, envied my status as a warrior, he worshipped Ares even more. But for all his posturing and pretense of ego, Joxer was never confident enough to be open about his feelings for Ares. I suppose I can understand his hesitation. If Gabrielle--not even a warrior but a "sidekick"--rebuffed him, what were his chances of wooing the God of War?

And so they both remained silent. As did I.

At the time, I thought that what I was doing was for the best. After all, what good could have come of a relationship between the world's most incompetent warrior and the world's most volatile god? All right, I know that assessment short-changes Joxer, but my intentions were good. I, gods help me, cared about Joxer, cared about what would happen to him if he became Ares' plaything.

I knew firsthand what that experience can do a person.

And Joxer, despite his delusions of heroism, was a good man with a good heart...even if he did occasionally do more harm than good. No matter how irritating he might have been at times with his clumsiness and his crush on Gabrielle, you could always count on him to be there for you.

I counted on him to protect the hind's-blood dagger and get it to me when the time was right, and he came through. He stood by us even when it would've been easy to pledge his allegiance to Dahak and ensure life rather than death for himself. He was a good friend to Gabrielle and me.

Being lover to the God of War would have changed him, would have hardened the parts of him that were tender and obliterated any weakness. He would have died or become an ugly caricature of himself.

I thought.

But now that I'm older, presumably wiser, and have the added perspective you gain when you're dead, I'm beginning to doubt my choice, to wonder whether my predictions might have been too dire.

Because I caught a glimpse of Ares the other day in the Elysian Fields, watching Joxer. And I can't imagine Ares--at least not the Ares I knew--keeping his distance from someone. Someone he was obsessed enough with that he continued to watch them a hundred years after their death.

So if I had told Joxer what I'd seen in Ares' eyes, told him that Ares was aching for him, perhaps his love would have changed Ares instead of the other way around. Perhaps his goodness and humanity would have rubbed off on Ares instead of Ares' ego and pettiness rubbing off on Joxer.

What kind of a man...god...would he have been under Joxer's influence? What sort of world would it be where the God of War was just a little bit less interested in pursuing mass death and destruction and a little more interested in love and conquering the willing body of his consort?

Sometimes I wonder if I should have said something to one of them, or to Gabrielle, because now it's too late.


End file.
